Jerry G. Angelo is a Los Angeles-based actor/screenwriter who'll be seen this season on the FOX TV hit 24 and is looking for representation. For more on Jerry, visit www.jerrygangelo.com.

Interview by Jeremy Kinser
Photography by John Skalicky
www.skalickyphoto.com

Jerry, you're an actor and a screenwriter now, but I understand you once had a thriving political career. Tell us about your adventures in politics?

My political career started after I graduated from the University of New Mexico. I originally wanted to go into the FBI but as fate would have it I got pulled into politics. I got a pretty decent position with the Senate Pro Tem in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was one of his assistants and a job opened up for a speed reader and this is a very important position as every single word that is presented at the state legislature is recorded on camera. The speed reader needs to be very clear and needs to pronounce everything properly. My boss submitted me and I was the fastest and most appropriate at the time. There are thousands of bills that get introduced and everything has to be read and then the Senate votes on it and all that stuff. The following year, I was asked to lobby for hospice. So I started doing a bill they had for gross receipts taxes. In New Mexico and I think Hawaii at the time were the only two states that were getting double taxed in certain areas. I had a monumental hand in getting that bill passed. The private sectors of hospices were being saved hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Did you move to L.A. after you decided to change careers?

Yeah. At the time I had come back to Washington, D.C., I was working up there and did some research for a state senator. I came back and was actually living on my mom's couch to find out what I wanted to do, and I made a decision to come out to Los Angeles within a couple of months.

In one of your photos you posed with a football. Are you trying to convince us that you're a big jock?

I wouldn't consider myself like a stereotypical jock. I just love being healthy and having my body be strong and taking advantage. I know that sometime down the road there's going to be a point when I don't have everything, I might not have my health. So I try to be everything that I can be in the moment. I play in a basketball league in Westwood. It's a very competitive league. To me it's the NBA. To me, it's important to get better each week. I practice whenever I can each week with shooting and dribbling and getting my left hand better, so I can make a stronger drive to the basket and finish with a good layup, as opposed to missing a little bit to the side or something. I can be Jordan, just in this little rec league.

Some of the other photos you posed with whom I presume is your best friend.

Oh, Papi Chulo? He's a cross between a German shepherd and a mastiff.

I understand you're going to be on 24 this season?

I have a small part on 24 as a Czechoslovakian rebel. Because of my background in martial arts and stunts and stuff like that, they cast me as one of the main rebels. We execute people. It's pretty gruesome. I was pretty surprised, I was like, "Wow, this is going to be on television." They show a gun going through a hostage's head. It's a random person by the airport and their head gets blown off. We did a week and a half last month and I have to go back this week.